1. It's The End of the World… (in 21 Years)
Steve McIntyre
7th August 2017

2. Agenda What’s up? When does it happen? What needs doing? Current state
Discussion
Take notes in gobby please!
gobby.debian.org
Debconf17/bof/2038

3. What’s up? UNIX time_t is a signed 32-bit integer
Counts seconds since Jan 1, 1970
It’s going to wrap!
Used everywhere
Imagine Y2K…
...but worse

4. WCPGW?

5. When does it happen? $ date --date=@$((2**31-1)) -u
Tue 19 Jan 03:14:07 UTC 2038

6. What needs doing? Lots of fixes needed up the stack:
Data formats (filesystems, ...)
Kernel internals
Kernel interfaces
Libraries
glibc folks have plans, others?
Applications

7. Linux kernel Project led by Deepa Dinamani and Arnd Bergmann
Adding 64-bit code
Fixing up drivers
Adding new versions of interfaces (syscalls, ioctls)
Lots of tasks – please help!

8. Glibc Planning ongoing – DRAFT status atm Provide 64-bit time support
Provide 64-bit time support
Continue supporting 32-bit time support
More coverage
Will depend on a Y2038-safe kernel
Lots of work to do; still planning it

9. Elsewhere? Other work (mostly) blocked on kernel/glibc progress?
I haven’t looked at other kernels…
Lots of libraries will need updates
Look for time_t / timeval / timespec
Mass rebuilds
Automated scanning (abi-compliance- checker)

10. Things to do now Help with the kernel and glibc work! Check your code
Check your dependencies
Don’t bodge around this
Don’t store time values in weird formats!

11. Thanks
Slides © 2017 Steve McIntyre
Content released under GPL v2
Images:
0 - CC-0 Public Domain San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive
1- Free for commercial use – no attribution required Pixabay
2- Free for commercial use – no attribution required Pixabay